Basque Club Aldizkaria Negua 2009 Winter Odolki Jatea & Mus Tournament The Basque Club’s Members free lunch and mus tournament will take place on Sunday, February 8th at the San Francisco Basque Cultural Center. The entire mus tour- nament will be played in one day, with finals being contested immediately fol- lowing lunch. Teams that qualify for the finals, will be seated together at a spe- cial reserved table for lunch. This table will be served first to ensure that the qualifying teams can begin the finals promptly. Mus tournament registration will start at 7:00am, and teams will be seated at 7:45am. The registration fee is $40 per team. The Members’ free lunch will be at 1:00pm. If you have already qualified for the NABO mus tournament, you are still strongly encouraged to participate in this mus tournament. Please RSVP for lunch by contacting Valerie Arrechea at 650-871-7347or etchar- [email protected] by February 3rd. Mil esker. This year’s International Mus Championships will be held just outside of Bilbo, from August 29th to September 5th. Sunday, February 8th, 7:00am / 1:00pm Elgarrekin 1983 Landmark Recording Gaztemundu 2008 Released On Compact Disk by Lisa Etchepare On the 25th anniversary of the Elgarrekin Basque Choir’s land- mark recording, the Basque Club re-issued this collection of eleven songs on Compact Disk. The master recording tapes were found in storage at the Basque Cultural Center in 2007 and were digitized and re-mastered by Robert Iriartborde. The forty- four member Elgarrekin choir made the Arriving in Gasteiz tired from the past days’ fêtes in Banca and with- recording on January 6th, 1983 at Notre out a clue of which direction the Tomás Alfaro Fournier hostel was Dames des Victoires, under the direction of in, my first thoughts on Gaztemundu 2008 was that I was in way Mattin Zubieta and Jeanne Mazeris. To over my head. However, although the level of my Spanish improved order online and to see a promotional only very slightly over the progressive two weeks, my opinion regard- video, please check www.BasqueClub.com. ing Gaztemundu dramatically changed. To order a copy my mail, please mail a Gaztemundu 2008 was without a doubt Inside check written to “Basque Club” in the the best way I could have dreamed of NABO 2 amount of $12 to Basque Club, c/o Phil- spending the first two weeks of July. 4 ippe Acheritogaray, 118 Yolo Street, Corte Aita Tillous Madera, CA 94925. Each morning started with classes. For Hall of Fame 4 four hours we were tutored in singing, Euskal Herria Brief 6 dance, txistu, and either txalaparta or ata- bal and pandereta depending on the day. Ikaspilota 7 Classes were held in groups of six to eight Basque Interns 7 and instruments were provided for us. Stanford ENE 7 Afternoons were either spent touring the Basque Country or listening to an impres- Sandra Ott 7 sive array of lecturers. Throughout Gaz- Basque Film Series 8 temundu 2008 we were fortunate enough Club Business 9 1 Continued on Page 3 Dance 101 9 Tristant Winery 10 Basque Club Aldizkaria 2009 Negua NABO News www.NABasque.org NABO and FEVA Begin Joint Efforts FEVA (NABO's counterpart federation in Argentina which is the home of the largest Basque com- munity outside of the Basque Country - http://www.fevaonline.org.ar/) and NABO have for the first time initiated an effort to “build bridges” between our two federations and together share re- ASTERO (Basque for "weekly") is NABO's free Basque news & information service that sources to fulfill are common mission of promoting Basque heritage. It is well understood that with is brought to you via email notification. To distance, varied local interests, etc. the initiatives are limited. Nevertheless, a few things in collabo- subscribe for weekly email notices send an ration could go a long way in benefitting both federations. email to [email protected]. At the IV Congress of World Basque Communities (July 2007) both federations jointly stated an intent to explore some shared initiatives. The followup was a round of meetings for several days in Mar del Plata, Argentina at the “Denak Bat” Upcoming NABO Meetings Basque clubhouse (January 2009). Representatives of each federation meet to dis- < Spring : Salt Lake City, UT (Sat. April cuss some possible initiatives to bring to fruition. Proposals grouped around three 18th) themes (Euskara, Gazteak/Youth, Euskal Erakundeen Elkartea /creation of a confederation of world Basque entities) emerged from those rounds of meetings that each federa- < Convention : Reno, NV (Fri., July 24, tion will then take back to its membership for consultation. For more details, please check the 2009) NABO website (www.NABasque.org) and click on “FEVA & NABO” under the “ASTERO < Fall : Seattle - Time and date to be News” links. announced. < 2010 Winter: San Francisco (Sat, Feb- ruary 13th). < 2010 Convention: Boise in conjunc- tion with Jaialdi. 2008 NABO Mus Champions / International Tournament ZORIONAK- Congratulations to the 2008 NABO winners Tony Vitoria The delegations of each federation at the conclusion of the three days of meetings. & Manuel Villanueva. They represented NABO well by Aita Martxel Tillous NABO placing 2nd at the interna- Youth Aid Fund Established tional tournament in Barce- lona this past fall. The 2009 International Tournament In its last meeting in Reno, NABO established a will be held just outside of Bilbo, Bizkaia on August special fund to assist youth in attending NABO’s 29th thru September 5th. youth programs. The fund was named in honor of Aita Martxel Tillous, who had been the Basque Chaplain for the United States from 1994 to 2008 and who also served as Txistu instructor for NABO’s Udaleku program from 1994-2007. Ap- plication forms will soon be available on the NABO website at www.NABasque.org. Aid for participation in Udaleku or Gaztealde is also available this year from the Basque Club, BEO and BCC. Please contact each organization for details: [email protected], NABO Calendar [email protected], [email protected]. Mary Curutchet 650-588-2249 - $6 . NABO is partnering with HABE (Basque Government entity responsible for adult euskara education) in launching a four year program for develop- ing local euskara instructors in the United States, which has worked success- fully in Argentina. The program develops persons from ground zero to entry level euskara instructors, and is slated to start this fall. If you are inter- ested in this program and can make a four year commitment, please contact the NABO Euskara Coordinator, Izaskun Kortazar at: [email protected]. 2 Izaskun Kortazar Basque Club Aldizkaria 2008 UDaberri Lisa Etchepare - Gaztemundu Continued to have an incredibly talented and personable group of instructors. Teach- ers at the music conservatory in Gasteiz, not only were our professors Udaleku will be held in Chino, California this year from June 28th passionate about the instruments they played, which usually amounted to through July 11th. Participants must be between the ages of 10 and five or six each, they were clearly fascinated by Basque culture. Each was 15. The price is $300 per participant. Udaleku exposes participants more than willing to spend hours answering our questions regardless of to Basque dance, music, singing and language. For more informa- the subject matter. It is probable that in five years I will not remember tion and to get an application form, please check the following web- the drum beats that Iñaki taught me and that much to Eneko’s displeas- page: ure, I will still be holding my pinkie incorrectly when I play txistu. How- http://www.NABasque.org/NABO/ ever, I know I will remember the stories that they told me because never Udaleku.htm before had I heard Basque history expressed with such flair and passion. Applications are due May 1st. Another large part of Gaztemundu was the sightseeing that we were able to do. With the program we explored Gernika, Donostia, Bilbo and vari- GAZTEALDE 2009: WORK HARD, PLAY HARD ous other cities. We celebrated San Fermin in Pamplona and watched a DATES: July 10th though July 500-year-old ceremony in El Barte. One of our last outings included a 18th visit to Juan Mari Beltran’s personal, and extensive, musical instrument collection. It was there that we learned, à la Juan Mari Beltran, that the LOCATION: Fort Worden State Park on the Olympic Peninsula near Seattle, Washington. only contribution the United States has made to the musical world is the harmonica Additionally, we spent a large chunk of time discovering the Gaztealde 2009 (ages 16-20) Application form is available on the NABO web beauty of Gasteiz. From the awe-inspiring wall at the Cathedral of Santa page. Please check the link below. Maria to the twisted streets of Gasteiz’s old town, we tried to see it all. In CONTENT: Master level- dance instruction/learning, mus playing, Euskara stud- each city our instructors managed to show us the major attractions while ies and culinary workshops will take place consistently throughout the week. never losing sight of the history and stories the smaller details told. I Students will also have a chance to kayak, hike and play in the beach daily. Bon- could not have asked for a better way to visit so much of Hegoalde, nor fires, cook-outs, camping and visiting local sites will be included as well. could I have asked for a better group of people to tour it with. Enjoy the Pacific Northwest, while hanging out with your Basque friends and As much as I learned about music and history, what I consider the most learning more about your Basque culture.